UCAR program in Boulder helps expand diversity in atmospheric science

SOARS students wrapping up a summer of research

When hurricanes slam into the Atlantic Coast, their impacts don't stop at the beach or even in coastal towns and cities.

Instead, the driving winds and pouring rains associated with the storms can travel far inland, hammering communities that are hours from the ocean. And the ability of those communities to protect themselves from the storm's wrath -- evacuating if necessary -- is influenced by who lives there. Some communities are more vulnerable than others.

"The type of people who live there matters," said Dereka Carroll, a student who spent the summer working at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.

Carroll is one of about two dozen students who conducted original research this summer, with the help of their mentors, as part of the Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research in Science, or SOARS, program. SOARS, based at the University Corp. for Atmospheric Research, which manages NCAR, aims to increase the number of people with diverse backgrounds who go into the atmospheric sciences.

The program stretches over multiple summers, and the idea is to have NCAR researchers teach students about the process of doing real science and to have the students help shape some of the questions that the research is designed to answer.

"We're very interested in inviting students to bring their own perspective to our science," said Rebecca Haacker-Santos, head of student opportunities for UCAR.

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In Carroll's case, she spent the summer working with NCAR hurricane expert James Done. And while she relied on his expertise and guidance about the science of hurricanes, she brought forward the idea about looking at how hurricanes affect vulnerable populations.

"I'm really interested in the societal impacts of severe weather in under-served communities," Carroll said. "The SOARS community is great because it really tries to align your interest with someone working on similar work."

Carroll ultimately created a map -- including inland areas -- that showed which communities are most vulnerable to Atlantic hurricanes. To put together the tool, she looked at how far the winds from past hurricanes were able to move inland and then correlated that information with demographic data on the communities. For example, places with a large proportion of elderly residents -- who may have disabilities that make them less mobile -- and places with a high poverty rate may be more vulnerable to storms because they have fewer resources to draw on to help them evacuate.

Carroll, who is planning to start graduate school at Purdue in the fall, hopes the information will help emergency managers better prepare communities in the face of severe storms.

Another SOARS participant, Ana Ordonez, spent the summer studying the places in the ocean where it might make sense to turn wave energy into electricity.

"We're really interested in knowing where ocean energy is available to be harvested -- places where we could go and install devices that would generate electricity from ocean waves and ocean currents," she said.

Ordonez calculated the ocean energy by looking at the height of waves, the direction of waves and the time that elapsed between one wave passing a point and the next wave passing the same point. But the raw energy in a wave does not necessarily translate into the ability for that energy to be harvested.

"Bigger waves do have more energy," Ordonez said. "But it could be that the wave is too tall for (an electricity-generating) device to operate in."

Ordonez will be a senior this fall at Arizona State University, where she is majoring in geography with a concentration in meteorology. Part of the goal of the SOARS program is to help students like Ordonez make a successful transition to graduate school by having them find and work with a mentor and produce original research while they're still undergraduates.

"It's the same process (in graduate school)," Haacker-Santos said. "They will have to find an adviser, and they will have to find a project that they end up working on."

Students can stay in the SOARS program for up to four years, and each year, about five to 10 slots open up for new students. This year, UCAR received 120 applications for five open spots.

"We really try to go after the most talented students," Haacker-Santos said.

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